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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24748468">standhaftige</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Indices/pseuds/Indices'>Indices</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>SCP Foundation</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>19th Century, Alternate Universe - Historical, Ballet, Gen, Greek War of Independence, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, Shippy Gen, with apologies to hans christian andersen</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-06-16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-06-16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 05:00:09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,894</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24748468</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Indices/pseuds/Indices</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Having departed from a newly independent Greece, a young man finds ballet, ambiguous friendship, and a not-quite happy ending in Copenhagen.</p>
<p>(Or, Bumaro is a dancer in the Royal Danish Ballet, and Ion is a radical writer. It’s about as nonsensical as it sounds.)</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Robert Bumaro &amp; Grand Karcist Ion (SCP Foundation)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>11</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>standhaftige</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Thanks again to <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ori_Cat/pseuds/Ori_Cat">Ori_Cat</a> for beta-ing, even though I tried to cram in way too many historical references that I had no expertise in.</p>
<p>Content warning for references to historical massacres and political repression.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The other dancers would always joke with you about it—<em>what’s a good Greek lad like you doing all the way up here, in the Copenhagen ballet? </em> And you would brush it off without a word. The war had swept through your childhood and left nothing but a bloody, gaping wound in its wake, and there was no one left for you back on those isles, so of course you had taken the first ship you could catch out of the Peloponnese once it was over. It was the same old story: you didn’t know the language, you fell on hard times, what were you to do? But you <em> could </em>dance, and it wasn’t so bad being able to create something beautiful, even if it was with your body instead of your mind. </p>
<p>Your roommate was an enigma. The two of you shared a tiny apartment on Frederiksborggade that smelled of coal dust that billowed over from Kultorvet and you had to rush down Gothersgade every morning, and it wasn’t wonderful but it wasn’t terrible either. He had come from somewhere in Russia, but knew enough Finnish to get by or nearabouts. To your ears they sounded similar enough, though when you’d asked he had raised his eyebrows and shrugged and said “Not that similar,” in that unaffected way of his. </p>
<p>He was too young to have been a Decembrist. Still, you guessed that he had been involved in some sort of uprising. When you mentioned it, he would only laugh and say, “If I was then they did a bad job of catching me. They would send me to <em> katorga</em>, you know.” <em> To work the galley</em>, you would think, turning the word over in your mind. <em> ка́торга, κάτεργον</em>. </p>
<p>He was a writer, or trying to be, though he never seemed to publish anything. At least, nothing respectable—though you supposed you had little reason to care about that, either. For a beggar’s wage he sent off articles to radical publications, most of which not more than ten people had heard of, and never tried to be remotely discreet about it. In the evenings you would practice your Danish, and for all his claims of dissimilarity he was still much better at it than you. The rhythm was different from Greek; when he read aloud his writing, the syllables did not sound clearly demarcated. But he was patient and did not begrudge you this, so it was certainly more than you could ask for.</p>
<p>Rarely had you invited him to one of your performances, if only because you disliked the implicit vanity—you were only one of the <em>corps de ballet</em>, a cog in the machine, interchangeable and replaceable. And you were content with this, though you knew you shouldn’t be. You should have been trying, like everyone else, to make <em> coryphée </em> by next year. </p>
<p>When you did invite him, he would always look up from his writing and shake his head contritely. “Terribly sorry, but I’m afraid I haven’t the money.” Until finally you presented him with a ticket and said, “A gift from M. Bournonville," though in reality you had paid it out of your own wages. </p>
<p>It felt stupid at the time, but you had done it anyway, because there was something in his eyes when he cast down words so intently across the paper that worried you despite yourself. And that bothered you, because you were supposed to be used to this. It was nothing unique. You had known scores of young men like this during the Struggle, and it had ended badly for every single one of them, down to the last. Even those that lived. It started with passion and noble ideals and ended with offal strewn across the fields for birds to feast on, dripping with that same patriotic blood—and the blood of everyone else, too.</p>
<p>But he was different from them, you told yourself, because he knew the sense in waiting, and biding his time. And he had little that was good to say about Napoleon.</p>
<p>In any case, it would hardly help to see the ballet before he died. Yet he went all the same, with a knowing glint in his eye when he said, “Then you can tell him ‘thank you’ for his generosity, from a starving writer who lives on Frederiksborggade.” Of course, you could pay no mind to him during the performance; you were needed on the stage. But afterwards he waited for you outside the theater, with his hands in his pockets.</p>
<p>“You were quite good, you know.”</p>
<p>“For the <em>corps de ballet</em>,” you appended, half a question.</p>
<p>“Well, yes. I don’t think any of them put half as much effort into such an understated role.”</p>
<p>Surprisingly, it sounded perfectly genuine.</p>
<p>“I think I’ll write something,” he said, as you walked home through the night, “about a tin soldier. And a paper ballet-dancer.”</p>
<p>“Andersen already did that,” you replied, flatly. But one corner of your lips quirked up anyway. “Just last year. Besides, I doubt that a piece of paper could balance on one leg for so long.”</p>
<p>He laughed. “A bronze one, then. All art is derivative one way or another. I’ll make mine a novel—and after much agonizing, I shall give them a happy ending.”</p>
<p>“His ending was happy enough.”</p>
<p>“Nonsense. What use is love when you’re dead?” His tone was light, and for a moment it almost gave you hope that you had been right. That he really was different from all of them.</p>
<p>So it went on like that for months, years. You made <em> coryphée, sujet, danseur. </em> He planted flowers in what little windowsill you had. Emilias, red clover, helleborine. Red flowers, you thought, for love or freedom or one of those things that you had long ago lost the ability to comprehend. The coal dust would always settle in the petals, but you could blow it away. At night when you pulled yourself up the stairs, exhausted, and slumped into a chair, he would read to you something from his drafts or tell you folktales from his home. </p>
<p>(It was never the real thing, only stories—and you thought that you could understand this. Why he loved myths and fairytales. One might die horribly in a fairytale, but for the most part they skipped over the mundane cruelties, and did not linger overmuch on the gruesome details. In fairytales it would be boring to tell of the taxes wrung from the <em> rayah</em>, and excessive to speak of what happened at Chios or Tripolitsa. Perhaps you could imagine one where your countrymen would not stare you in the eyes and call you a deserter.)</p>
<p>Once, he even introduced you to the other editors at his publication, which they had started somewhere along the line. There were four of them—the first was a young woman from Samarkand, who looked as hardscrabble as any of the urchins the war had left behind. For the most part she barely minded you, though she did perk up a little, in curiosity, when you explained that you danced in the ballet. Then there was a grave, one-eyed man from Tashkent: he was imposing, but gave something like a nod when he heard that you had come out of the war. There was a scarred man who had come all the way from Gilgit, with his nose buried in something titled<em> Either/Or, </em>who flashed you a quick smile before turning back to it. And finally, behind the desk sat a woman rumored to have come from nobility, a darling of the Ottoman courts—before she fell out of favor. She was stunning, in a ferocious, bold-featured way, and regarded you uneasily. The feeling was mutual. </p>
<p>Although there were attempts, they never quite took to you. You didn’t mind. Already you had survived for this long without being considered a gracious or comradely person, and even he wasn’t going to fix that. You were just glad to have someone to talk to in the evenings, with whom to share frustrations about the company and make fasolada. (For the lack of a decent olive oil, it never turned out well. You were glad he couldn't tell.)</p>
<p>But of course all this had to end.</p>
<p>It had to end, because you had been right about him. He was not like all the boys who had followed Ypsilantis into battle—not like you, because he knew how to bide his time. But the point of all that carefulness was simply so they could be completely assured of victory. Beneath that cool exterior, there had never been a dearth of ardor.</p>
<p>Even before it came, you knew there would be a day when he would leave. </p>
<p>When finally it did, one spring morning in 1848, it did not surprise you that he was not sailing off to France or Prussia. No—he was going back to Russia, with that slim volume clutched tightly in his hands, barely a sheaf of paper. </p>
<p>First it would be Helsinki, and from there, Petersburg. And then—who knew? Would he stay in the city, dodging the tsar’s censors for the rest of his life? Or would he return to the village of his birth, where Marx and Engels would be useless and the prettiest words could not save him from the tsar's men, when he fomented some doomed revolt?</p>
<p>No matter what, you thought, the result would be the same. Even then you could see it, in your mind's eye. </p>
<p>For you, nothing short of perfection. You would grow colder and more resolute by the day, and your fellow dancers would come to despise you—but the audience would love you all the more. They'd bring you flowers, in every color of the rainbow save for red, and vie for a chance to shake your hand. You would rise high and grow old and write your memoirs. And no one would have expected it, not for a boy from an island on the Aegean whose name no one knew, who had arrived with nothing but the clothes on his back.</p>
<p>For him, only an unmarked grave. </p>
<p>And no one would have expected otherwise. Except, possibly, for himself, and those who followed close behind. </p>
<p>“Give <em> De Nationalliberale </em> my regards, though I doubt they’ll need it,” he said, as you were seeing him off at the port. Further down the docks, the other editors were waiting for him. “Let’s meet again, when all of us are truly free. And, for my sake, try not to melt.”</p>
<p><em> Wait</em>, you opened your mouth to say. <em>I'll go</em>. But already he was turning away. </p>
<p>The ship cast off, its sails unfurling. You watched it go. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>***</p>
<p> </p>
<p>At the end of this century, when you are old and tired with aching joints that can no longer dance, you will wonder what might have happened, had you caught the very next ship to Helsinki and followed him to Petersburg. Never mind that he might not have been found, that you had known even less of Russian than of Danish. That way, at least, you would at least have had a chance of finding out what happened to him.</p>
<p>But because you will not have done this, you will only be able to return, every spring, to lay flowers by the entrance of that old apartment building.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Title from Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Steadfast Tin Soldier,” or <i>Den standhaftige tinsoldat.</i></p>
<p>Some references: </p>
<p>Frederiksborggade and Gothersgade are streets in Copenhagen, and Kultorvet is a square. <i>Katorga</i> was a system of penal labor used in the Russian Empire. August Bournonville led the Royal Danish Ballet from 1828 to 1879. In ascending order, <i>corps de ballet, coryphée, sujet,</i> and <i>danseur</i> were historical roles for male ballet dancers. <i>Rayah</i> was a term that had been applied to Greeks, but was more generally used for the tax-paying lower class in the Ottoman Empire. </p>
<p>During the Greek War of Independence, Chios was the site of a massacre of Greeks by the Ottomans, while Tripolitsa was the site of a massacre of the Muslim and Jewish populations of the city by the Greeks. Fasolada is a type of soup made with olive oil, white beans, and vegetables. <i>De Nationalliberale</i>, or the National Liberal Party, was a political party in Denmark that was seen as the driving force in the end of absolutism in the country, during the 1848 Revolutions.</p>
<p>Credit to Wikipedia for all of this information and more. Feel free to ask in the comments if something is confusing, and please let me know if there are any historical or cultural details that I should fix.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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